20 August 2012

I told myself I needed to apply to jobs before I left Spain. Before I traveled. Before I got home. I wanted to be prepared. I wanted to be responsible. And I didn't really believe it would make any difference anyway.

In the back of my mind I had a plan. I would relax. Re-adjust. Unpack. And slowly dip my toes into working. Maybe I'd start part-time. I'd work at Bookmans and revel in the calm bookstore atmosphere, traipsing around between the bookshelves full of delightful used old books. I'd love it. And it would be relaxing and low-key. And I would just take it easy. Or something.

Little did I know that something else awaited me. A crazy whirlwind that would leave me less than 8 hours difference between the time my plane landed back home and the time I had to to work the next day. Little did I know that from that first day on I would be swamped with paperwork, planning, organizing, preparing and arranging. Little did I know that being an elementary school teacher would put me in over my head more than I have ever been before. And I am in way over my head.

But I'm glad that's the way it turned out. I never saw myself as a 4th grade teacher. And I am not sure if I do even now. Yet, that's what I am, for the time being. And for the last three weeks I have been thrown into the midst of a new world. A world where everything is so simple and yet so unbearably complex all at once. Where every day there is something new. There is constantly something fabulously sweet or beautiful or valuable. And also something so utterly frustrating and incomprehensibly ridiculous I don't know how I am going to stand it. I reach the end of each day exhausted. I am asking everyone questions. I am searching for new answers and solutions, learning something I thought I knew all over again. Seeing everything from a new angle and trying to figure out what that means and how to deal with it.

And mostly, since I got back home, just 3 weeks ago, I am wondering why the days are shorter than ever before. How time seems to run out so quickly and why there is never never time for everything. Not nearly.

Of course, that really shouldn't surprise me. Time has always been the greatest trickster. So, I guess nothing is new after all. It's all just the same story over and over again.